One in every eleven persons born in Mexico has gone to the U.S. The National Review reported that in 2014 $1.87 billion was spent on incarcerating illegal immigrant criminals….Now add hundreds of billions for welfare and remittances! MICHAEL BARGO, Jr…… for the AMERICAN THINKER.COM

Saturday, February 6, 2016

NARCOMEX ON OUR OPEN AND UNDEFENDED BORDERS - HOW HEROIN PLAYS INTO BARACK OBAMA'S STRATEGY OF BUILDING A DICTATORSHIP FOR HIS CRONIES BY DESTROYING THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS HE SO LOATHES

THE BANKSTER PRESIDENT'S STRATEGY TO FORM A MUSLIM-SYMPATHETIC DICTATORSHIP:1. MAKE SURE THE BANKSTERS HAVE LOOTED THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS DOWN TO ZERO.2. KEEP THE BORDERS WIDE OPEN TO ASSURE THAT NO LEGAL CAN GET A JOB. BOTH OBAMA'S SEC. of (ILLEGAL) LABOR WERE LA RAZA MEXICAN SUPREMACIST.3. SABOTAGE HOMELAND SECURITY TO ASSURE THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS HAVE OPEN MARKETS. AN ADDICTED MIDDLE CLASS CAN HARDLY PUT UP A FRONT AGAINST AN OBAMA DICTATORSHIP.4. ARM THE MEX DRUG CARTELS AND CALL IT "Fast and Furious".About the time President Bush threw open our southern border —
followed by Obama rolling out the welcome mat for illegal aliens —
Mexico aggressively moved into the heroin business. In 2007, U.S.
authorities seized 367 kilos of heroin on the Mexican border. In 2013,
authorities seized 2,162 kilos. During that same time period, heroin use
nearly doubled in the U.S.

Heroin: Blame it on America
By Ann Coulter

Human Events Online, February 3, 2016

About the time President Bush threw open our southern border —
followed by Obama rolling out the welcome mat for illegal aliens —
Mexico aggressively moved into the heroin business. In 2007, U.S.
authorities seized 367 kilos of heroin on the Mexican border. In 2013,
authorities seized 2,162 kilos. During that same time period, heroin use
nearly doubled in the U.S.

As a result, in the last decade, half a million Americans have died
from drug overdoses, mostly heroin and other opiates. That’s ten times
more than the number of Americans who died fighting the entire Vietnam
War.

Mexico is pumping drugs into our country, but to blame Mexicans
would be “xenophobic.” They’re poor and brown! We can’t blame the
Mexican drug cartels, and we certainly can’t blame the corrupt Mexican
government that is paid off by the cartels.

Concrete Evidence of the Continuing Plunge in Both Civil and Criminal Immigration Enforcement

By Dan Cadman

CIS Immigration Blog, January 23, 2016

Two
recent reports from Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access
Clearinghouse (TRAC) reflect the continued erosion of immigration
enforcement under the Obama administration.

On January
20, TRAC reported that criminal prosecution for immigration offenses
fell 22.3 percent from November 2014 to November 2015, and more than 36
percent over the course of five years, excluding magistrate court
(which deals exclusively with petty offenses).

The
following day, TRAC announced that "ICE [Immigration and Customs
Enforcement] Detainer Use Stabilizes Under Priority Enforcement
Program". The Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) is the replacement to
the Secure Communities Program mandated by Homeland Security Security
Jeh Johnson as a part of the president's "executive actions" on
immigration. It significantly restricts the ability of immigration
agents to file detainers against aliens arrested by police on criminal
charges.

I have no idea what TRAC means by
"stabilizes". A quick look at Figure 1a of their report shows a more
accurate state of affairs, if one considers the number of detainers
being filed over the course of five years, from a high in April 2011,
when Secure Communities became fully effective nationwide and kicked
into high gear, versus October 2015. I would use other phrases:
"plummeted" or "Dropped like a stone". Or, as my colleague Jessica
Vaughan has noted, particularly in relation to detainers filed at
county jails, where the lion's share of criminals of any stripes are
held after being booked for offenses small and large: "a stunning free
fall".

February 4, 2016

Obama, in radical mosque, calls for other religions to be tolerant

As
the body count at the hand of Islamic extremists continues to rise in
America, shouldn't the president be trying to come up with a way to
defend Judeo-Christian types, who cling to guns and the Bible, from
Islamic jihadi types who cling to machetes and the Quran?Guess
not, because for his first visit to a U.S. mosque, Obama chose a
congregation where a Sudanese native and former member of the Muslim
Brotherhood, Mohamed Adam el-Sheikh, was chief imam for almost twenty years.

Why would a U.S. president even give credence to a congregation once led by a man
who also lent a hand in founding the Muslim American Society, a Muslim
Brotherhood-established organization interested in advancing sharia law?Does Obama not care that in his spare time, the current executive director of the Fiqh Council of North America, an association of Islamic legal scholars, also helped found the notorious Dar Al-Hijrah mosque, led by the late al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki?
Or that in 2004, while still serving as imam of the Islamic Society of
Baltimore, el-Sheikh discussed Palestinian suicide bombers with the
Washington Post?

If
certain Muslims are to be cornered where they cannot defend themselves,
except through these kinds of means, and their local religious leaders
issued fatwas to permit that, then it becomes acceptable as an
exceptional rule, but should not be taken as a principle.

Even the alleged terrorist-affiliated
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) commended Obama's decision
to visit the Islamic Society of Baltimore, saying:

For
a number of years, we've been encouraging the president to go to an
American mosque. With the tremendous rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in
our country, we believe that it will send a message of inclusion and
mutual respect.

"Inclusion and mutual respect"?Maybe CAIR should tell that to the two homosexual men
murdered by devout Muslim-American/convicted sex offender Ali Muhammad
Brown, who, after rinsing the blood off his hands, went on to avenge
Muslim deaths overseas by also executing 19-year-old college student Brendan Tevlin at a traffic light.Prior to the president showing up in Baltimore, White House spokesperson Josh "Not So" Earnest had this to say:

I
think the president is quite interested in making sure that we're
affirming the important role that Muslims play in our diverse American
society and certainly affirming their right to worship God in a way
that's consistent with their heritage.

Question:
Who exactly is not upholding "the important role that Muslims play in
our diverse American society"? And in the 3,186 mosques located in
cities all across America, which people are having their "right to
worship God in a way that's consistent with their heritage" thwarted?Furthermore, rather than worrying about the 3 million Muslims steadily progressing toward becoming the second largest religion in America, maybe Josh should be making sure that, despite Obama, the Little Sisters of the Poor retain their "right to worship God in a way that's consistent with their heritage."Meanwhile,
the president descended on the Islamic Society of Baltimore, which is
sort of like preaching about being less discriminatory toward Christians
from the pulpit of the hateful Westboro Baptist Church.In Baltimore, Obama mentioned bullied Muslim children and vandalized mosques and lauded Ibtihaj Muhammad,
a 2016 female Olympian who plays with swords while dressed in a hijab.
Then he pointed out that "we have to understand: an attack on one faith
is an attack on all our faiths."One small problem! This is the guy who consistently assaults certain faiths.In
2009, prior to a speaking engagement at Georgetown University's Gaston
Hall, Obama requested the crucifixes be covered up. That same year, in
order to have a "non-religious"
Christmas, Obama suggested that the East Room Nativity be relocated.
Likewise, the president has blamed Christianity for lives lost during
the Crusades and regularly ridicules the Christian faith with snide remarks. As for God's chosen people,
Obama insulted Jews at a White House Hanukah celebration; publicly
dissed Bibi Netanyahu; and, worse yet, minimized the threat posed by
providing a genocidal anti-Semitic revolutionary theocratic state a pathway to a nuclear bomb.Not
to mention the president's failure to acknowledge the worldwide
genocide being waged by Muslims against Christians, or ignoring the fact
that in America, Jews are ten times more likely than Muslims to be targeted for a hate crime.Advocating
for Islam seems to be Barack "that's not who we are'" Obama's most
ardent public relations effort. In his recent State of the Union
address, anyone perceived to be indulging in what he perceives as
anti-Muslim bigotry was publicly rebuked when he said:

When
politicians insult Muslims, whether abroad or our fellow citizens, when
a mosque is vandalized, or a kid called names, that doesn't make us
safer. That's not telling it like it is. It's just wrong. It diminishes
us in the eyes of the world.

How
about when Muslim extremists living in the U.S. shoot and kill 14
people at a Christmas party; behead a co-worker at a food distribution
plant; or, "on a mission from Allah," stab a store clerk to death? Does
that "make us safer"?Besides,
how is America elevated in the eyes of the world if our president
remains silent after Islamic extremists behead two Coptic Christians in
New Jersey, or slit the throats of three Jewish men in Massachusetts?Since Barack Obama ascended from the mean streets of Chicago to the Oval Office in 2009, there have been approximately 64 people
murdered by Muslim extremists on U.S. soil, and that's not counting the
number of American deaths at the hands of Muslims overseas.And
yet, in another attempt to address what Barack Obama calls a "hugely
distorted impression" of Islam, the one suffering from what perceives in
others hoped to remedy the problem by commiserating with the guilty at a
radical mosque in Baltimore.Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.com.

As
the body count at the hand of Islamic extremists continues to rise in
America, shouldn't the president be trying to come up with a way to
defend Judeo-Christian types, who cling to guns and the Bible, from
Islamic jihadi types who cling to machetes and the Quran?Guess
not, because for his first visit to a U.S. mosque, Obama chose a
congregation where a Sudanese native and former member of the Muslim
Brotherhood, Mohamed Adam el-Sheikh, was chief imam for almost twenty years.Why would a U.S. president even give credence to a congregation once led by a man
who also lent a hand in founding the Muslim American Society, a Muslim
Brotherhood-established organization interested in advancing sharia law?Does Obama not care that in his spare time, the current executive director of the Fiqh Council of North America, an association of Islamic legal scholars, also helped found the notorious Dar Al-Hijrah mosque, led by the late al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki?
Or that in 2004, while still serving as imam of the Islamic Society of
Baltimore, el-Sheikh discussed Palestinian suicide bombers with the
Washington Post?

If
certain Muslims are to be cornered where they cannot defend themselves,
except through these kinds of means, and their local religious leaders
issued fatwas to permit that, then it becomes acceptable as an
exceptional rule, but should not be taken as a principle.

Even the alleged terrorist-affiliated
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) commended Obama's decision
to visit the Islamic Society of Baltimore, saying:

For
a number of years, we've been encouraging the president to go to an
American mosque. With the tremendous rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in
our country, we believe that it will send a message of inclusion and
mutual respect.

"Inclusion and mutual respect"?Maybe CAIR should tell that to the two homosexual men
murdered by devout Muslim-American/convicted sex offender Ali Muhammad
Brown, who, after rinsing the blood off his hands, went on to avenge
Muslim deaths overseas by also executing 19-year-old college student Brendan Tevlin at a traffic light.Prior to the president showing up in Baltimore, White House spokesperson Josh "Not So" Earnest had this to say:

I
think the president is quite interested in making sure that we're
affirming the important role that Muslims play in our diverse American
society and certainly affirming their right to worship God in a way
that's consistent with their heritage.

Question:
Who exactly is not upholding "the important role that Muslims play in
our diverse American society"? And in the 3,186 mosques located in
cities all across America, which people are having their "right to
worship God in a way that's consistent with their heritage" thwarted?Furthermore, rather than worrying about the 3 million Muslims steadily progressing toward becoming the second largest religion in America, maybe Josh should be making sure that, despite Obama, the Little Sisters of the Poor retain their "right to worship God in a way that's consistent with their heritage."Meanwhile,
the president descended on the Islamic Society of Baltimore, which is
sort of like preaching about being less discriminatory toward Christians
from the pulpit of the hateful Westboro Baptist Church.In Baltimore, Obama mentioned bullied Muslim children and vandalized mosques and lauded Ibtihaj Muhammad,
a 2016 female Olympian who plays with swords while dressed in a hijab.
Then he pointed out that "we have to understand: an attack on one faith
is an attack on all our faiths."One small problem! This is the guy who consistently assaults certain faiths.In
2009, prior to a speaking engagement at Georgetown University's Gaston
Hall, Obama requested the crucifixes be covered up. That same year, in
order to have a "non-religious"
Christmas, Obama suggested that the East Room Nativity be relocated.
Likewise, the president has blamed Christianity for lives lost during
the Crusades and regularly ridicules the Christian faith with snide remarks. As for God's chosen people,
Obama insulted Jews at a White House Hanukah celebration; publicly
dissed Bibi Netanyahu; and, worse yet, minimized the threat posed by
providing a genocidal anti-Semitic revolutionary theocratic state a pathway to a nuclear bomb.Not
to mention the president's failure to acknowledge the worldwide
genocide being waged by Muslims against Christians, or ignoring the fact
that in America, Jews are ten times more likely than Muslims to be targeted for a hate crime.Advocating
for Islam seems to be Barack "that's not who we are'" Obama's most
ardent public relations effort. In his recent State of the Union
address, anyone perceived to be indulging in what he perceives as
anti-Muslim bigotry was publicly rebuked when he said:

When
politicians insult Muslims, whether abroad or our fellow citizens, when
a mosque is vandalized, or a kid called names, that doesn't make us
safer. That's not telling it like it is. It's just wrong. It diminishes
us in the eyes of the world.

How
about when Muslim extremists living in the U.S. shoot and kill 14
people at a Christmas party; behead a co-worker at a food distribution
plant; or, "on a mission from Allah," stab a store clerk to death? Does
that "make us safer"?Besides,
how is America elevated in the eyes of the world if our president
remains silent after Islamic extremists behead two Coptic Christians in
New Jersey, or slit the throats of three Jewish men in Massachusetts?Since Barack Obama ascended from the mean streets of Chicago to the Oval Office in 2009, there have been approximately 64 people
murdered by Muslim extremists on U.S. soil, and that's not counting the
number of American deaths at the hands of Muslims overseas.And
yet, in another attempt to address what Barack Obama calls a "hugely
distorted impression" of Islam, the one suffering from what perceives in
others hoped to remedy the problem by commiserating with the guilty at a
radical mosque in Baltimore.

The
Texas Tribune is taking a yearlong look at the issues of border
security and immigration, reporting on the reality and rhetoric around
these topics. Sign up to get story alerts.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with new statements from U.S. Customs & Border Protection and Joel Luna's lawyer.

BROWNSVILLE — Federal immigration authorities are treating Joel Luna, a Border Patrol Agent accused last month
of capital murder and drug cartel ties in deep South Texas, as a
potential foreign national subject to deportation, The Texas Tribune has
learned.

In an unusual move, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has
targeted the federal agent with a “detainer” — basically a civil arrest
warrant filed against non-citizens — at the Cameron County jail. As a
matter of law, ICE has no civil immigration enforcement authority to arrest or detain a U.S. citizen.

The detainer adds a surprising twist to a case that has already
generated national headlines and focused attention on U.S. law
enforcement corruption along the southern border.

Luna, two of his brothers and two other South Texas men have been indicted on
capital murder and other charges stemming from the murder and beheading
of a Honduran national, whose body was found during spring break last
year near South Padre Island. Investigators say the men had ties to the
powerful Gulf Cartel.

After Luna was arrested last year, the Cameron County sheriff's
office said investigators found more than a kilo of cocaine, $90,000 in
cash, firearms and Luna’s Border Patrol badge in a safe at the home of
his mother-in-law.

The five men are scheduled to be arraigned in state district court in
Brownsville on Wednesday. Garcia said Joel Luna will plead not guilty
on all charges and ask for a jury trial.
Now a new wrinkle has emerged in this case: Luna has two birth
certificates, one from Hidalgo County, Texas, the other from Reynosa,
Mexico — right across the Rio Grande River.

ICE did not immediately return phone calls, but Luna’s lawyer, Carlos
A. Garcia, said he has no doubt that his client is a U.S. citizen, an
ironclad requirement for employment as a Border Patrol agent. Garcia
also denied a statement from U.S. Customs & Border Protection
asserting that Luna had been "arrested on False Claim To United States
Citizenship" on Nov. 12, when the agent was already in state custody in
South Texas.

He said any federal arrest would trigger an appearance before a
magistrate within 48 hours and notification to him as Luna's lawyer —
and "none of that occurred," Garcia told the Tribune.
“He worked for the federal government. No one had ever questioned his
citizenship before — until his arrest,” Garcia said. “I don’t put much
value in whoever it was that made that determination. You have one
person that decided that, you know what, this is worth a second look.”

Garcia said Luna attended elementary school in Mexico, which has stiff paperwork requirements
for children who want to enter the public school system there. He said
it’s not uncommon for parents or other relatives to fraudulently obtain
Mexican birth certificates.

“Mexicans who live along the border can purchase a birth certificate
by just showing up one day and saying, 'Hey, my kid was born on this
date in this place,'” he said.

In Luna’s case, the U.S. birth certificate was filed two days after
his birth on May 20, 1985. The Mexican birth certificate was issued in
August of 1988, a little over three years after his birth was reported
in San Juan, Texas.

The Texas Tribune has obtained both documents. The Mexican one came
from authorities in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of the state of
Tamaulipas, where birth certificates are considered public records.
Garcia provided the Tribune his American birth certificate. The
existence of the Mexican birth certificate potentially suggests that
Luna has dual citizenship.

Border Patrol Agent Joel Luna, indicted for
capital murder, has two birth certificates, one saying he was born in
Mexico, the other saying he was born in Texas. Luna's lawyer says he was
born in Texas.

“I don’t know whether or not my client has Mexican citizenship per
se, but there is a Mexican birth certificate out there,” Garcia said.
"He left Mexico a long, long time ago when he was very young. It’s
unfortunate that we have this little wrinkle, but it's there."

It's at least the second recent case involving a federal border agent
holding both Mexican and U.S. birth certificates. In another case of
alleged law enforcement corruption at the border, the Monitor newspaper
of McAllen reported Tuesday
that a Customs and Border Protection agent accused of taking a bribe
also has competing birth claims on both sides of the border.

As Feds Plan to Cut Border Monitoring, Texas Officials Ask Why

A
Customs and Border Protection vehicle patrols on the Texas border near
the Rio Grande, Thursday, July 24, 2014, in Mission, Texas. Texas is
spending $1.3 million a week for a bigger DPS presence along the border.

Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar,
a Laredo Democrat, pressed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on
Monday to explain why the agency plans to reduce its aerial surveillance
on the Texas-Mexico border.
In a letter
to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, the lawmakers said the cut to a requested
3,850 hours of aerial detection and monitoring in 2016 amounts to 50
percent less coverage than recent years.
“Given the recent surge
of migrants from Central America and Cuba along the southern border, we
believe DHS should request more surveillance and security resources, not
fewer,” Abbott and Cuellar wrote in a letter.
The pair also reminded Johnson that in September, Abbott’s office asked the DHS for more aerial resources and U.S. Border Patrol agents but that the request was never acknowledged.
A DHS spokesperson said the agency would respond "directly" to the governor and the congressman.

Monday’s
request comes as CBP is reporting a new surge in the number of
undocumented immigrants crossing the Rio Grande. From October to
December of 2015, about 10,560 unaccompanied minors entered Texas
illegally through the Rio Grande Valley sector of the U.S. Border
Patrol. That marks a 115 percent increase over the same time frame in
2014. The amount of family units, defined as at least one child and
adult guardian or parent, has increased by 170 percent to 14,336 in the
Rio Grande Valley.

The El Paso sector also saw 1,030 unaccompanied minors, an increase of almost 300 percent.In
Monday’s letter, the pair also requested a detailed breakdown of how
the DHS determined the reduction in aerial surveillance was warranted
and information on how staffing and operation levels would be affected.
While
Abbott has spoken extensively about illegal immigration from Mexico and
Central America, the letter marked the first time Abbott has
referenced a recent surge of Cubans coming into Texas.
Abbott visited
the island nation last year to explore expanding trade between Cuba and
Texas. During that trip, he spoke about the current trade embargo but
not the migrant issue.
During the 2015 fiscal year, about 28,400
Cubans entered Texas through U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Laredo
field office, which extends from Del Rio to Brownsville. That’s
compared to about 15,600 in 2014.
The surge came after the Obama
administration announced in 2014 its plans to re-establish ties with
Cuba, leaving many Cubans fearing they will lose a special designation
that allows them to apply for legal residency status, or a “green card,”
after living in the country for a year. Cuellar and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, have called for the repeal of that designation.

Another Surge of Illegal Immigrants Along the Southwest Border: Is this the Obama Administration’s New Normal?

House Committee on the Judiciary
9:00 a.m., Thursday, February 4, 2016
2141 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Houston Slayings Fueled Border Security Debate

Dan Golvach, father of Spencer Golvach, at his son's grave in Houston Tuesday, October 20, 2015.

The
Texas Tribune is taking a yearlong look at the issues of border
security and immigration, reporting on the reality and rhetoric around
these topics. Sign up to get story alerts.

HOUSTON — Julie Golvach remembers that something felt “off” the night she lost her only child.
It
was exactly one year ago today, a few minutes before 1 a.m. Standing
in the driveway of her Houston home, waving goodbye to her sister under
a clear winter sky, something didn't feel right. The stars didn’t look
the same.
Golvach tossed and turned in bed for a while but was sound asleep when a knock on the door came at 6 a.m.
“I jumped up and I knew,” she said.
She
stopped by her son’s boyhood bedroom, the one with the window looking
out onto the driveway. He’d slept there a week earlier, the evening
they went to see "American Sniper" together. She slipped past the
picture of him and his best childhood friend on the wall, skirting the
bed with the stuffed toy lamb — a baby shower relic — lying on top.
Out
the window, Golvach saw three people — two uniformed police officers
and a woman wearing a shirt that read “chaplain.” Her chest pounded as
she made her way to the front door and opened it.
“Is it Spencer?” she asked.
The
second those words tumbled out of her mouth, she knew the answer, just
as she had known when she uttered that exact phrase the day he was born,
before anyone told her if the baby was a boy or a girl. She just knew.
It was Spencer.One night off
Spencer
Golvach grew up in the sprawl of northwest Houston, surrounded by
guitars and destined for a career in music, his father’s passion.
When
he turned 16 in 2005 and got his driver’s license, the easygoing
musician started working at a local guitar store in a strip mall not
far from Jersey Village High School, where he excelled in shop class and
anything he could do with his hands.
He had always fiddled with
his dad’s guitars, and he developed a knack for fixing and rebuilding
them at the store. A few years later, when the shop owner announced his
retirement, Spencer decided to buy the Cy-Fair area business.

Spencer
Golvach, at the age of three, pictured with a guitar. Authorities say
Golvach was killed by Victor Reyes, an undocumented immigrant, during a
random shooting spree in January 2015.

With nine
employees and a soft economy, life as an entrepreneur proved tough
sledding. He struggled to turn a profit, and he took a second full-time
job as a receiving lead and forklift operator at a local warehouse.
Even
that wasn’t enough to cover the bills. By early 2015, Spencer was
preparing to move into a smaller — and cheaper — space in the same
shopping mall. He could hardly wait for Saturday, Jan. 31 to arrive, the
day the slimmed-down version of Spencer’s Guitar Shop was set to open.
Between giving guitar lessons, working an 8-to-5 day job, building out
the new store and playing bass in his band — The Dead Revolt — Spencer
needed a break.
“The guy was burning the candle at both ends for a
long time,” recalled Dan Golvach, his father. “He takes one night off,
to go take his girlfriend out for her birthday. That was Jan. 30. And
he drops her off ... and 15 minutes later he pulls up to that red
light.”
Less than a mile from his apartment, Spencer steered into
the left turn lane at 18th Street and Mangum Road and waited for the
green light. The details of what happened next are captured in the
records of two police agencies, more than a dozen news articles and the
unceasing nightmares of Spencer’s parents and loved ones.
An
undocumented Mexican national named Victor Reyes, a native of Reynosa
along the Texas-Mexico border, pulled up next to Spencer's beloved
white Toyota pickup. He pointed a pistol at Spencer’s head and pulled
the trigger.
The bullet went through the passenger side window and into Spencer’s skull, at the top of his right ear.
“I
choose to believe it killed him instantly,” his father said in an
interview months later. “I think he was just there and then it’s like
someone turned the lights off. I don’t think he suffered.”
But the
Golvach family’s suffering — compounded by the feeling that Spencer’s
death could have been prevented — was just beginning.
Houston
police, their report indicates, found 25-year-old Spencer dead in his
truck at 12:56 a.m. — right around the moment Julie Golvach, waving
goodbye to her sister, couldn't shake the feeling that something was
off.
A few hours later, she was phoning her ex-husband to break the news.

“I couldn’t make out what she was saying and I finally just said, ‘is my son dead?’”— Dan Golvach

“She
was just inconsolable,” he recalled. “I couldn’t make out what she was
saying and I finally just said, ‘is my son dead?’ She said, ‘yes.’
Then of course I started. I joined the chorus.”
More than a
thousand people attended Spencer’s memorial service, a tribute to his
fun-loving nature and penchant for making friends across generational,
ethnic and gender lines.
Those who knew Spencer universally
describe him as fun-loving and strikingly calm. After he died, a family
friend ordered up a batch of commemorative rubber bracelets emblazoned
with his laid-back motto: “Chill Don’t Freeze."

A bloody rampage
More
than once since the funeral, Julie Golvach has found herself wishing
that her son’s attacker had gotten to know Spencer. She’s convinced he
never would have pulled the trigger. But the official evidence of the
crime, while scant, suggests Spencer was chosen randomly. And he wasn’t
the only victim.
Police say Reyes shot a man in the face,
wounding him, in the suburban city of Jersey Village minutes before
killing Spencer, and they connected him to at least two more random
shootings shortly thereafter. All told, Reyes shot two dead and wounded
three others before a Harris County Sheriff’s deputy took him down
after a violent shootout, officials say.
John Weston, 67, says
he’s lucky to be alive after encountering Reyes on the Hempstead Highway
near Pinemont, about 10 minutes north of where Spencer had just been
killed. He remembers seeing a big, dark truck driving aggressively
behind him. When he got to the stoplight, it pulled up alongside him.
“All
of a sudden I hear this ungodly noise,” Weston recalled. “I don’t know
if you can imagine how fast your mind works, but I saw a shattered
window and I saw a bullet hole in my window. My mind is thinking, ‘Oh
my goodness, somebody’s shooting at me and this guy at this light.’”
He
pressed his foot to the accelerator to get out of the line of fire,
but not soon enough. He heard the second shot, and its impact felt like
someone “hauled off and hit you upside the head,” he said.
Weston
realized the truck's driver was the gunman. “I saw blood everywhere,”
he said. His hands were covered in it, so he could only manage to
re-dial on his cell phone. He finally reached his wife, who told him to
go to the nearest toll booth. An ambulance was called. Doctors found
that a bullet had entered his left cheek and stuck in the other side of
his mouth.
A year later, after reconstructive surgery to replace a
badly shattered jaw, his mouth remains completely numb below the
tongue. With his health woes and lost time at work, he’s struggling to
keep his printing business afloat.
“Everything I do now is a
little more difficult, but considering I’m here talking, I’m blessed to
be here,” Weston said. “It’s scarred me forever. I don’t break down
and cry, but I think about it all the time.”
Had Reyes been a
homegrown criminal, the story might have ended in the empty field where
the deputy shot him — chalked up as another random act of violence in a
city and nation all too used to them.
But as word spread about
Reyes’ long criminal record and multiple deportations, the case was
thrust into the volatile debate over illegal immigration and control of
the southern border: first in local news stories, then at the Capitol
in Austin and most recently on the presidential campaign trail — on
a stage in mid-November with GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump in
Beaumont, where Dan Golvach spoke out and held up a poster of Spencer
along with others killed by undocumented immigrants.Gunman's long recordAccording
to the Houston office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Reyes
had been removed from the country four times between 2003 and 2010, but
little is publicly known about what he was doing in Houston prior to
terrorizing its northwest environs — or why he did it.His
criminal and illegal entry records stretch back at least to 2002 when,
at age 18, he was convicted of burglarizing a building in Hidalgo
County, across the border from Reynosa, which he told police was his
place of birth. He spent a month and a half in jail before a state court
sentenced him to three years' probation, ordered him to pay an $850
fine and mandated 120 hours of community service.

Victor
Reyes, shown in 2001 jail mug shot from Hidalgo County. Authorities say
Reyes, an undocumented immigrant, went on a January 2015 shooting
spree in Harris County that killed two and wounded three.

A
year later, he was back in the Hidalgo County Jail for breaking a beer
bottle over a man’s head at the Tejano Saloon in Pharr. He was sent
back to Mexico after serving about a month in the local jail, but he
came back. By then, his previous probation had been revoked, and he
served several months in a state jail in Raymondville.Deported
again on Jan. 20, 2004, Reyes was caught trying to cross the border the
next day, triggering a 90-day sentence in federal prison and yet
another deportation — his third.A
few months later, on Aug. 10, he was caught again, in McAllen, and
received a one-year federal prison sentence for his fourth known illegal
re-entry. His crimes didn’t end there. A few weeks before his prison
release date, Reyes beat up a fellow inmate — described by his lawyer as
a rival gang member — cutting and fracturing his face, according to
federal court records.Two
new assault charges made Reyes eligible for 20 years behind bars.
Despite his history of violence, burglary and repeat illegal crossings,
federal prosecutors offered Reyes a deal: In exchange for a guilty plea
on one of the counts, and in recognition of his “truthful testimony”
and “acceptance of responsibility,” they promised to give him a sentence
“at the lowest end of the applicable guidelines” on a single charge,
court papers show. Under the plea bargain, Reyes' sentence was 63
months, a quarter of the maximum he faced under the two counts.That’s
a few more spoonfuls of salt in the wound for Dan and Julie Golvach.
Had Reyes been given even half of his possible sentence on the two
assault counts, he would have been in prison instead of at that traffic
light killing their son.
“The people who agreed to this
deal need to be held accountable,” Julie Golvach said. “The result was
the horrific murder of my son.”
The prosecutor who signed the plea
agreement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Hammer, declined to talk about
the case, referring questions to U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman
Angela Dodge in Houston.
Dodge sent The Texas Tribune a
boilerplate description of plea deals, saying they “ensure a resolution
of the case and that someone is convicted of the crime(s) we believe
they committed without going through the time and expense of a trial,”
while providing “justice for all.” She declined to say whether
prosecutors took Reyes' previous crimes into account, or if they
frequently offer plea deals to convicted criminals who commit additional
crimes behind bars.
It’s another official secret in a case with no shortage of them.Family still seeking answers
The
Houston Police Department, using its own discretion under the Public
Information Act, blocked release of all but a few details on the
Golvach and Weston shootings. The department cited a provision allowing
it to withhold criminal records absent a final disposition, such as a
conviction or deferred adjudication. Since Reyes is dead and the city’s
case is otherwise closed, that means Houston police likely can withhold
the information indefinitely.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office
declined to release its investigative files, but for an entirely
different reason: After every officer-involved shooting — in this case,
a deputy ended Reyes’ deadly rampage — the Harris County district
attorney’s office presents the case to a grand jury even if no one
complains. That happened last week, just days before the one-year
anniversary of the shooting spree.
The federal government holds
onto its files with a tight grip, too, citing the 1974 U.S. Privacy
Act. The act covers only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents,
but Immigration and Customs Enforcement has decreed that its
protections apply to federal immigration detention records, even those
related to undocumented immigrants convicted of horrific crimes. The
agency voluntarily released a narrative of its multiple encounters with
Reyes, but the Tribune has not yet heard back from ICE or U.S.
Citizenship & Immigration Services on its written request for his
entire immigration file.

The
secrecy across local and federal agencies that came into contact with
Reyes confounded and frustrated the people touched by his violence.
Weston said his wife became “very disillusioned” about their quest for
even the simplest answers.

Dan
Golvach, father of Spencer Golvach, in Houston Tuesday, October 20,
2015 at the intersection where his son was killed by an undocumented
immigrant in January.

“I mean, we asked them, ‘Who
was the guy?’” Weston said. “We had to fill out paperwork and all that
kind of stuff, but we never got any satisfactory answer. It was almost
like it was top secret information.”
Hoping to break through the
bureaucratic walls and get some answers about who killed their son and
why, the Golvaches eventually hired a former investigative reporter,
ex-KTRK-TV newsman Wayne Dolcefino. In a letter last year to
then-Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia, Dolcefino said the sheriff’s
office was “doing a disservice to this crime victim by not responding
to this request in a proper manner.” The local investigative files
remained sealed as of late last week, but the Harris County Sheriff's
Office asked the Tribune to resubmit its request for the records and
promised a quick turnaround.
Even with new information beginning
to trickle out, the victims and their families still don't know where
Reyes lived or if he had a job, who owned the truck he was driving that
night or — least of all — the motive for his deadly rampage.
According to Harris County Assistant District Attorney Heyward Carter, some elements of the senseless crime may never be known.
Carter,
who handled a single aspect of the case — the officer-involved
shooting — was able to speak about the case for the first time last
week. He revealed that Reyes was "extremely intoxicated" and had a
"significant amount of cocaine" in his system. He also identified the
weapon, a .380 caliber pistol, that he said was legally purchased at
one point, but authorities haven't determined how a convicted felon and
undocumented immigrant, barred from buying or possessing firearms,
obtained it.

“We live in an age of mass shootings, and even though this one didn’t get a whole lot of publicity, that’s what this is."

— Heyward Carter, Harris County Assistant District Attorney

Carter
also provided details about the actions of the Harris County deputy
sheriff, Javier Rojas, who finally put an end to the deadly rampage. By
chance, Rojas was patrolling the area and heard shots being fired. He
saw the truck of Reyes' final victim, identified by police as Juan
Garcia, in obvious distress, weaving randomly at an intersection.
Garcia later died from his wounds, and a woman in the car with him was
slightly injured from the broken glass.
Rojas chased after Reyes,
who crashed his truck through a barrier at the end of a dead end street
and went another 200 yards or so into an empty field. Rojas continued
the pursuit on foot and found Reyes crouching behind the truck. He
ordered the suspect to drop his weapon but Reyes stood and fired at the
officer instead. Rojas returned fire and struck him in the chest. When
authorities photographed the body his hand was still gripping the
pistol "with his finger on the trigger," Carter said.
In terms of
a motive, authorities can only speculate based on a conversation Reyes
had with a supposed girlfriend about three hours before the shooting
spree began. He wanted her to go out to a bar or nightclub with him,
and she turned him down. Authorities speculate he may have been taking
out his rage on couples: It's possible he saw Spencer Golvach dropping
off his girlfriend shortly before shooting him at the red light and
then targeted Garcia after seeing he had a woman in his vehicle.
But it's just a theory.
“We
live in an age of mass shootings, and even though this one didn’t get a
whole lot of publicity, that’s what this is," Carter said. "I don’t
understand why he was doing it.”
Carter did confirm what the families had learned from detectives
in the immediate aftermath of the shootings: Reyes still had plenty of
ammunition left in his truck — suggesting that he was planning a more
extensive shooting spree. There were at least 20 live rounds left in the
vehicle, and he appeared to be reloading while driving near the scene
of his final attack.
“Had this officer not been there just
coincidentally ... there were plenty of roads for him to go down. He
had plenty of ammo, and it didn't seem like he was stopping, that's for
sure," Carter said. "As horrible as this situation was, it could have
been way worse.”
After the facts were presented to grand jury last
Wednesday, the panel decided not to proceed with any further action
related to the incident. The Golvach family calls Rojas' response
heroic."Why was he allowed to be here?"Julie
Golvach burst out into tears again last week after hearing for the
first time some of the details of the crime that took her son's life. “I
really feel I deserve to know what brought them together at that point
in time, what caused him to shoot my son,” she said. “I think we
deserve to know why he was even here — why he was allowed to be here.”
It’s
a common refrain among those who have been victimized by people in the
country illegally. They weren’t supposed to be here in the first
place, and the government's inability to keep them from crossing the
southern border after they’ve been deported — and prevent them from
committing crimes — provokes a unique brand of helplessness and outrage.
Even
Weston, a lifelong Democrat who attended both of Barack Obama’s
inaugurations and favors allowing otherwise law-abiding immigrants into
the United States to work and seek a better life, said he had to fight
the urge to call Donald Trump and tell him he was “dead-on” with his
focus on foreigners who commit crimes here.
“Somebody’s got to do
something about it,” he said. In the same breath, Weston emphasized
that he doesn’t support Trump for president and said keeping dangerous
felons from crossing the border or entering the vast illegal workforce
defied simplistic solutions.
“If there’s some way to filter out
the ones that intend to harm people, I would be in support of that,” he
said. “It may prevent something like this from happening to somebody
else.”
Dan Golvach is more blunt and
outspoken. A few weeks after his son’s murder, he was at the state
Capitol testifying in favor of 2015 state legislation — ultimately
doomed — that would have prohibited local law enforcement authorities
in Texas from adopting “sanctuary” policies that keep police out of
immigration matters.
Then late last year, he appeared with Trump
at a campaign rally in Beaumont, saying his son died as “the result of
politically correct politics” — namely, bipartisan policies that he
believes go too easy on undocumented immigrants and the people who hire
them.
“When you lose the thing you love the most, you’re not that
worried about being PC,” Golvach said in an interview. “If you’re
going to come here, you need to do it legally on our terms, not your
terms.”
Golvach readily admits that anger over his son’s killing
sometimes hits “toxic” levels. He says he’s still haunted by the image
of Spencer in a hastily chosen coffin, still upset he was killed right
next to the stadium where he used to watch baseball as a kid, still mad
as hell that the government won’t cough up the records they have on his
son’s killer.
It would be worse without all the good memories of
his son, and without the certainty that if Spencer were alive today he
would say to him: “chill don’t freeze.”
“He’d tell me, ‘Don’t
have a heart attack. You know, clear your mind and keep it cool,'” he
said. “He would tell me not to hate anybody

House Appropriations Boss Initiates Crackdown on Sanctuaries

Today
the chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee in charge of
funding the Department of Justice, John Culberson (R-Texas), put the
Obama administration on notice that it must take steps to rein in
sanctuary jurisdictions or risk problems getting approval for its own
budget requests. In addition, Culberson announced that he will begin
requiring local jurisdictions to follow federal law and stop
obstructing communication with immigration agencies as a condition for
receiving certain federal law enforcement funding.

BLOG:
LIKE ALL OF OBAMA'S CABINET, ONE MUST FIRST BE CONNECTED TO THE
BANKSTER SECTOR AND SECONDLY BE AN ADVOCATE FOR OPEN BORDERS, SABOTAGE
E-VERIFY AND PROMOTE THE INTERESTS OF LA RAZA ABOVE LEGALS. THAT IS
EXACTLY WHAT LORETTA LYNCH HAS AND WILL DO.

In a sternly worded letter
to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Culberson said that he has a
responsibility to ensure that state and local law enforcement agencies
are following federal law before they can get federal grants. He said
that sanctuary policies restricting communication between local and
federal officials are a clear violation of Section 1373
of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Among the jurisdictions that
have imposed such policies are San Francisco, Cook County, Ill., and New
York City. In addition to prohibiting local officers from communicating
with immigration authorities, these jurisdictions bar federal officers
from coming into jails to interview or arrest deportable criminals.

State
and local sanctuary policies obstruct immigration enforcement and
cause the release of criminal aliens back to the streets of American
communities. According to ICE records that the Center obtained in a
FOIA request, in 2014 more than 9,000 criminal aliens that ICE was
seeking to deport were instead released. More than 2,300 of these
criminal aliens went on to commit additional crimes within just a few
months.

The three law enforcement funding programs that
could become off-limits to sanctuaries currently dispense more than $1
billion a year to state and local agencies.
Mr. Culberson contacted the Center shortly after the publication of this information
in July, saying that he had long sought concrete information on the
extent of this problem and that he was determined to use his authority
to address it. The Center has compiled a list of over 300 cities,
counties, and states that have laws, ordinances, regulations,
resolutions, policies, or other practices that protect criminal aliens
from deportation — either by refusing to or prohibiting agencies from
complying with ICE detainers, imposing unreasonable conditions on
detainer acceptance, or otherwise impeding open communication and
information exchanges between their employees or officers and federal
immigration officers. These jurisdictions are noted on a map here.
Culberson's letter outlines several steps he expects the Justice Department to take:

Beginning
this year, amend the grant application forms for the Byrne/Justice
Assistance Grants (JAG), Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS)
grants, and State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP)
reimbursement program to require agencies seeking these funds to swear
that they do not have policies that violate Section 1373; and

Work
with sanctuary jurisdictions to change their policies, and if they do
not, take legal action to compel their compliance with federal law;

Deny funding to any non-compliant sanctuary jurisdictions.

In addition, he asks the attorney general to look at whether
jurisdictions that release criminal aliens sought by ICE are in
violation of 8 USC 1324,
the federal felony statute that prohibits anyone from shielding illegal
aliens from detection. After all, these jurisdictions have been
notified in writing by the detainers (federal Form I-247) that the
aliens' identities and status have been confirmed by biometric
fingerprint matching, and that federal agents wish to take custody of
the aliens, and/or to be notified of the date, time, and place of
release — so the sanctuaries are knowingly releasing deportable aliens
sought by ICE. He said that he will consider applying this section of
the law next year to block funding to jurisdictions that release
criminal aliens sought by ICE. This action could affect the hundreds of
agencies that fail to comply with or accept ICE detainers, for example.

Culberson
warned that if the administration stubbornly continues to tolerate
sanctuaries, he will find it hard to look favorably on any spending
requests from DOJ in the coming appropriations season: "I hope the
attorney general will do the right thing here so that I am not
compelled to object to relevant portions of the Department's spending
plan and reprogramming requests. Any refusal by the Department to comply
with these reasonable and timely requests will factor heavily in my
consideration of their 2017 budget requests."

Even
following public outcry over a series of cases of murders committed by
criminal aliens after release by sanctuaries, including the killing of
Kate Steinle in San Francisco, the Obama administration has resisted
calls for action to discourage or punish the jurisdictions that obstruct
immigration enforcement. Instead, it has pressed ahead in implementing
the so-called Priority Enforcement Program, which explicitly allows
sanctuary policies that violate federal law. It's clear that the
administration is more interested in protecting criminal aliens than in
protecting the public from their acts; now we'll see if the Department
of Justice is willing to jeopardize its own funding to spare
sanctuaries from being sanctioned, and if the sanctuaries are willing
to sacrifice federal funding in order to protect criminal aliens.

Surge in Illegal Aliens, 500% Increase in Some U.S. Ports of Entry

Judicial Watch Corruption Chronicles, December 30, 2015

The
agency’s own statistics certainly contradict that, showing that the
southern border region is as porous and vulnerable as ever. Other entry
ports that saw large hikes in Central American illegal immigrants
during the first two months of this fiscal year include Del Rio, Texas
(269%), El Centro, California (216%) and Rio Grande Valley, Texas
(154%). The Border Patrol breaks the stats down by “family unit” and
illegal immigrants under the age of 18, referred to as “Unaccompanied
Alien Children” or UAC. The Rio Grande Valley port of entry topped the
list in both categories with 8,537 family units and 6,465 UACs during
the two-month period. In all, the nation’s nine southern border
crossings saw an average of 173% increase in family units and a 106%
increase in minors during the short period considered.

Some
of the illegal immigrants are Mexican nationals, but the overwhelming
majority comes from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The government
records show that somehow 4,450 family units from El Salvador evaded
our topnotch border security and entered the United States in a period
of only two months. Guatemala and Honduras had 3,934 and 3,203
respectively. Mexico had 538 family units. Of interesting note is that,
during this period, the Border Patrol reports 35,234 apprehensions in
the region of foreigners labeled by the government as “Other Than
Mexican” or OTM. This is a term used by federal authorities to refer to
nationals of countries that represent a terrorist threat to the U.S.
. . .http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/12/surge-in-illegal-aliens-500-increase-in-some-u-s-ports-of-entry/

Houston Slayings Fueled Border Security Debate

Dan Golvach, father of Spencer Golvach, at his son's grave in Houston Tuesday, October 20, 2015.

The
Texas Tribune is taking a yearlong look at the issues of border
security and immigration, reporting on the reality and rhetoric around
these topics. Sign up to get story alerts.

HOUSTON — Julie Golvach remembers that something felt “off” the night she lost her only child.
It
was exactly one year ago today, a few minutes before 1 a.m. Standing
in the driveway of her Houston home, waving goodbye to her sister under
a clear winter sky, something didn't feel right. The stars didn’t look
the same.
Golvach tossed and turned in bed for a while but was sound asleep when a knock on the door came at 6 a.m.
“I jumped up and I knew,” she said.
She
stopped by her son’s boyhood bedroom, the one with the window looking
out onto the driveway. He’d slept there a week earlier, the evening
they went to see "American Sniper" together. She slipped past the
picture of him and his best childhood friend on the wall, skirting the
bed with the stuffed toy lamb — a baby shower relic — lying on top.
Out
the window, Golvach saw three people — two uniformed police officers
and a woman wearing a shirt that read “chaplain.” Her chest pounded as
she made her way to the front door and opened it.
“Is it Spencer?” she asked.
The
second those words tumbled out of her mouth, she knew the answer, just
as she had known when she uttered that exact phrase the day he was born,
before anyone told her if the baby was a boy or a girl. She just knew.
It was Spencer.One night off
Spencer
Golvach grew up in the sprawl of northwest Houston, surrounded by
guitars and destined for a career in music, his father’s passion.
When
he turned 16 in 2005 and got his driver’s license, the easygoing
musician started working at a local guitar store in a strip mall not
far from Jersey Village High School, where he excelled in shop class and
anything he could do with his hands.
He had always fiddled with
his dad’s guitars, and he developed a knack for fixing and rebuilding
them at the store. A few years later, when the shop owner announced his
retirement, Spencer decided to buy the Cy-Fair area business.

Spencer
Golvach, at the age of three, pictured with a guitar. Authorities say
Golvach was killed by Victor Reyes, an undocumented immigrant, during a
random shooting spree in January 2015.

With nine
employees and a soft economy, life as an entrepreneur proved tough
sledding. He struggled to turn a profit, and he took a second full-time
job as a receiving lead and forklift operator at a local warehouse.
Even
that wasn’t enough to cover the bills. By early 2015, Spencer was
preparing to move into a smaller — and cheaper — space in the same
shopping mall. He could hardly wait for Saturday, Jan. 31 to arrive, the
day the slimmed-down version of Spencer’s Guitar Shop was set to open.
Between giving guitar lessons, working an 8-to-5 day job, building out
the new store and playing bass in his band — The Dead Revolt — Spencer
needed a break.
“The guy was burning the candle at both ends for a
long time,” recalled Dan Golvach, his father. “He takes one night off,
to go take his girlfriend out for her birthday. That was Jan. 30. And
he drops her off ... and 15 minutes later he pulls up to that red
light.”
Less than a mile from his apartment, Spencer steered into
the left turn lane at 18th Street and Mangum Road and waited for the
green light. The details of what happened next are captured in the
records of two police agencies, more than a dozen news articles and the
unceasing nightmares of Spencer’s parents and loved ones.
An
undocumented Mexican national named Victor Reyes, a native of Reynosa
along the Texas-Mexico border, pulled up next to Spencer's beloved
white Toyota pickup. He pointed a pistol at Spencer’s head and pulled
the trigger.
The bullet went through the passenger side window and into Spencer’s skull, at the top of his right ear.
“I
choose to believe it killed him instantly,” his father said in an
interview months later. “I think he was just there and then it’s like
someone turned the lights off. I don’t think he suffered.”
But the
Golvach family’s suffering — compounded by the feeling that Spencer’s
death could have been prevented — was just beginning.
Houston
police, their report indicates, found 25-year-old Spencer dead in his
truck at 12:56 a.m. — right around the moment Julie Golvach, waving
goodbye to her sister, couldn't shake the feeling that something was
off.
A few hours later, she was phoning her ex-husband to break the news.

“I couldn’t make out what she was saying and I finally just said, ‘is my son dead?’”— Dan Golvach

“She
was just inconsolable,” he recalled. “I couldn’t make out what she was
saying and I finally just said, ‘is my son dead?’ She said, ‘yes.’
Then of course I started. I joined the chorus.”
More than a
thousand people attended Spencer’s memorial service, a tribute to his
fun-loving nature and penchant for making friends across generational,
ethnic and gender lines.
Those who knew Spencer universally
describe him as fun-loving and strikingly calm. After he died, a family
friend ordered up a batch of commemorative rubber bracelets emblazoned
with his laid-back motto: “Chill Don’t Freeze."

A bloody rampage
More
than once since the funeral, Julie Golvach has found herself wishing
that her son’s attacker had gotten to know Spencer. She’s convinced he
never would have pulled the trigger. But the official evidence of the
crime, while scant, suggests Spencer was chosen randomly. And he wasn’t
the only victim.
Police say Reyes shot a man in the face,
wounding him, in the suburban city of Jersey Village minutes before
killing Spencer, and they connected him to at least two more random
shootings shortly thereafter. All told, Reyes shot two dead and wounded
three others before a Harris County Sheriff’s deputy took him down
after a violent shootout, officials say.
John Weston, 67, says
he’s lucky to be alive after encountering Reyes on the Hempstead Highway
near Pinemont, about 10 minutes north of where Spencer had just been
killed. He remembers seeing a big, dark truck driving aggressively
behind him. When he got to the stoplight, it pulled up alongside him.
“All
of a sudden I hear this ungodly noise,” Weston recalled. “I don’t know
if you can imagine how fast your mind works, but I saw a shattered
window and I saw a bullet hole in my window. My mind is thinking, ‘Oh
my goodness, somebody’s shooting at me and this guy at this light.’”
He
pressed his foot to the accelerator to get out of the line of fire,
but not soon enough. He heard the second shot, and its impact felt like
someone “hauled off and hit you upside the head,” he said.
Weston
realized the truck's driver was the gunman. “I saw blood everywhere,”
he said. His hands were covered in it, so he could only manage to
re-dial on his cell phone. He finally reached his wife, who told him to
go to the nearest toll booth. An ambulance was called. Doctors found
that a bullet had entered his left cheek and stuck in the other side of
his mouth.
A year later, after reconstructive surgery to replace a
badly shattered jaw, his mouth remains completely numb below the
tongue. With his health woes and lost time at work, he’s struggling to
keep his printing business afloat.
“Everything I do now is a
little more difficult, but considering I’m here talking, I’m blessed to
be here,” Weston said. “It’s scarred me forever. I don’t break down
and cry, but I think about it all the time.”
Had Reyes been a
homegrown criminal, the story might have ended in the empty field where
the deputy shot him — chalked up as another random act of violence in a
city and nation all too used to them.
But as word spread about
Reyes’ long criminal record and multiple deportations, the case was
thrust into the volatile debate over illegal immigration and control of
the southern border: first in local news stories, then at the Capitol
in Austin and most recently on the presidential campaign trail — on
a stage in mid-November with GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump in
Beaumont, where Dan Golvach spoke out and held up a poster of Spencer
along with others killed by undocumented immigrants.Gunman's long recordAccording
to the Houston office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Reyes
had been removed from the country four times between 2003 and 2010, but
little is publicly known about what he was doing in Houston prior to
terrorizing its northwest environs — or why he did it.His
criminal and illegal entry records stretch back at least to 2002 when,
at age 18, he was convicted of burglarizing a building in Hidalgo
County, across the border from Reynosa, which he told police was his
place of birth. He spent a month and a half in jail before a state court
sentenced him to three years' probation, ordered him to pay an $850
fine and mandated 120 hours of community service.

Victor
Reyes, shown in 2001 jail mug shot from Hidalgo County. Authorities say
Reyes, an undocumented immigrant, went on a January 2015 shooting
spree in Harris County that killed two and wounded three.

A
year later, he was back in the Hidalgo County Jail for breaking a beer
bottle over a man’s head at the Tejano Saloon in Pharr. He was sent
back to Mexico after serving about a month in the local jail, but he
came back. By then, his previous probation had been revoked, and he
served several months in a state jail in Raymondville.Deported
again on Jan. 20, 2004, Reyes was caught trying to cross the border the
next day, triggering a 90-day sentence in federal prison and yet
another deportation — his third.A
few months later, on Aug. 10, he was caught again, in McAllen, and
received a one-year federal prison sentence for his fourth known illegal
re-entry. His crimes didn’t end there. A few weeks before his prison
release date, Reyes beat up a fellow inmate — described by his lawyer as
a rival gang member — cutting and fracturing his face, according to
federal court records.Two
new assault charges made Reyes eligible for 20 years behind bars.
Despite his history of violence, burglary and repeat illegal crossings,
federal prosecutors offered Reyes a deal: In exchange for a guilty plea
on one of the counts, and in recognition of his “truthful testimony”
and “acceptance of responsibility,” they promised to give him a sentence
“at the lowest end of the applicable guidelines” on a single charge,
court papers show. Under the plea bargain, Reyes' sentence was 63
months, a quarter of the maximum he faced under the two counts.That’s
a few more spoonfuls of salt in the wound for Dan and Julie Golvach.
Had Reyes been given even half of his possible sentence on the two
assault counts, he would have been in prison instead of at that traffic
light killing their son.
“The people who agreed to this
deal need to be held accountable,” Julie Golvach said. “The result was
the horrific murder of my son.”
The prosecutor who signed the plea
agreement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Hammer, declined to talk about
the case, referring questions to U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman
Angela Dodge in Houston.
Dodge sent The Texas Tribune a
boilerplate description of plea deals, saying they “ensure a resolution
of the case and that someone is convicted of the crime(s) we believe
they committed without going through the time and expense of a trial,”
while providing “justice for all.” She declined to say whether
prosecutors took Reyes' previous crimes into account, or if they
frequently offer plea deals to convicted criminals who commit additional
crimes behind bars.
It’s another official secret in a case with no shortage of them.Family still seeking answers
The
Houston Police Department, using its own discretion under the Public
Information Act, blocked release of all but a few details on the
Golvach and Weston shootings. The department cited a provision allowing
it to withhold criminal records absent a final disposition, such as a
conviction or deferred adjudication. Since Reyes is dead and the city’s
case is otherwise closed, that means Houston police likely can withhold
the information indefinitely.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office
declined to release its investigative files, but for an entirely
different reason: After every officer-involved shooting — in this case,
a deputy ended Reyes’ deadly rampage — the Harris County district
attorney’s office presents the case to a grand jury even if no one
complains. That happened last week, just days before the one-year
anniversary of the shooting spree.
The federal government holds
onto its files with a tight grip, too, citing the 1974 U.S. Privacy
Act. The act covers only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents,
but Immigration and Customs Enforcement has decreed that its
protections apply to federal immigration detention records, even those
related to undocumented immigrants convicted of horrific crimes. The
agency voluntarily released a narrative of its multiple encounters with
Reyes, but the Tribune has not yet heard back from ICE or U.S.
Citizenship & Immigration Services on its written request for his
entire immigration file.

The
secrecy across local and federal agencies that came into contact with
Reyes confounded and frustrated the people touched by his violence.
Weston said his wife became “very disillusioned” about their quest for
even the simplest answers.

Dan
Golvach, father of Spencer Golvach, in Houston Tuesday, October 20,
2015 at the intersection where his son was killed by an undocumented
immigrant in January.

“I mean, we asked them, ‘Who
was the guy?’” Weston said. “We had to fill out paperwork and all that
kind of stuff, but we never got any satisfactory answer. It was almost
like it was top secret information.”
Hoping to break through the
bureaucratic walls and get some answers about who killed their son and
why, the Golvaches eventually hired a former investigative reporter,
ex-KTRK-TV newsman Wayne Dolcefino. In a letter last year to
then-Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia, Dolcefino said the sheriff’s
office was “doing a disservice to this crime victim by not responding
to this request in a proper manner.” The local investigative files
remained sealed as of late last week, but the Harris County Sheriff's
Office asked the Tribune to resubmit its request for the records and
promised a quick turnaround.
Even with new information beginning
to trickle out, the victims and their families still don't know where
Reyes lived or if he had a job, who owned the truck he was driving that
night or — least of all — the motive for his deadly rampage.
According to Harris County Assistant District Attorney Heyward Carter, some elements of the senseless crime may never be known.
Carter,
who handled a single aspect of the case — the officer-involved
shooting — was able to speak about the case for the first time last
week. He revealed that Reyes was "extremely intoxicated" and had a
"significant amount of cocaine" in his system. He also identified the
weapon, a .380 caliber pistol, that he said was legally purchased at
one point, but authorities haven't determined how a convicted felon and
undocumented immigrant, barred from buying or possessing firearms,
obtained it.

“We live in an age of mass shootings, and even though this one didn’t get a whole lot of publicity, that’s what this is."

— Heyward Carter, Harris County Assistant District Attorney

Carter
also provided details about the actions of the Harris County deputy
sheriff, Javier Rojas, who finally put an end to the deadly rampage. By
chance, Rojas was patrolling the area and heard shots being fired. He
saw the truck of Reyes' final victim, identified by police as Juan
Garcia, in obvious distress, weaving randomly at an intersection.
Garcia later died from his wounds, and a woman in the car with him was
slightly injured from the broken glass.
Rojas chased after Reyes,
who crashed his truck through a barrier at the end of a dead end street
and went another 200 yards or so into an empty field. Rojas continued
the pursuit on foot and found Reyes crouching behind the truck. He
ordered the suspect to drop his weapon but Reyes stood and fired at the
officer instead. Rojas returned fire and struck him in the chest. When
authorities photographed the body his hand was still gripping the
pistol "with his finger on the trigger," Carter said.
In terms of
a motive, authorities can only speculate based on a conversation Reyes
had with a supposed girlfriend about three hours before the shooting
spree began. He wanted her to go out to a bar or nightclub with him,
and she turned him down. Authorities speculate he may have been taking
out his rage on couples: It's possible he saw Spencer Golvach dropping
off his girlfriend shortly before shooting him at the red light and
then targeted Garcia after seeing he had a woman in his vehicle.
But it's just a theory.
“We
live in an age of mass shootings, and even though this one didn’t get a
whole lot of publicity, that’s what this is," Carter said. "I don’t
understand why he was doing it.”
Carter did confirm what the families had learned from detectives
in the immediate aftermath of the shootings: Reyes still had plenty of
ammunition left in his truck — suggesting that he was planning a more
extensive shooting spree. There were at least 20 live rounds left in the
vehicle, and he appeared to be reloading while driving near the scene
of his final attack.
“Had this officer not been there just
coincidentally ... there were plenty of roads for him to go down. He
had plenty of ammo, and it didn't seem like he was stopping, that's for
sure," Carter said. "As horrible as this situation was, it could have
been way worse.”
After the facts were presented to grand jury last
Wednesday, the panel decided not to proceed with any further action
related to the incident. The Golvach family calls Rojas' response
heroic."Why was he allowed to be here?"Julie
Golvach burst out into tears again last week after hearing for the
first time some of the details of the crime that took her son's life. “I
really feel I deserve to know what brought them together at that point
in time, what caused him to shoot my son,” she said. “I think we
deserve to know why he was even here — why he was allowed to be here.”
It’s
a common refrain among those who have been victimized by people in the
country illegally. They weren’t supposed to be here in the first
place, and the government's inability to keep them from crossing the
southern border after they’ve been deported — and prevent them from
committing crimes — provokes a unique brand of helplessness and outrage.
Even
Weston, a lifelong Democrat who attended both of Barack Obama’s
inaugurations and favors allowing otherwise law-abiding immigrants into
the United States to work and seek a better life, said he had to fight
the urge to call Donald Trump and tell him he was “dead-on” with his
focus on foreigners who commit crimes here.
“Somebody’s got to do
something about it,” he said. In the same breath, Weston emphasized
that he doesn’t support Trump for president and said keeping dangerous
felons from crossing the border or entering the vast illegal workforce
defied simplistic solutions.
“If there’s some way to filter out
the ones that intend to harm people, I would be in support of that,” he
said. “It may prevent something like this from happening to somebody
else.”
Dan Golvach is more blunt and outspoken. A few weeks after
his son’s murder, he was at the state Capitol testifying in favor of
2015 state legislation — ultimately doomed — that would have prohibited
local law enforcement authorities in Texas from adopting “sanctuary”
policies that keep police out of immigration matters.
Then late
last year, he appeared with Trump at a campaign rally in Beaumont,
saying his son died as “the result of politically correct politics” —
namely, bipartisan policies that he believes go too easy on
undocumented immigrants and the people who hire them.
“When you
lose the thing you love the most, you’re not that worried about being
PC,” Golvach said in an interview. “If you’re going to come here, you
need to do it legally on our terms, not your terms.”
Golvach
readily admits that anger over his son’s killing sometimes hits “toxic”
levels. He says he’s still haunted by the image of Spencer in a
hastily chosen coffin, still upset he was killed right next to the
stadium where he used to watch baseball as a kid, still mad as hell that
the government won’t cough up the records they have on his son’s
killer.
It would be worse without all the good memories of his
son, and without the certainty that if Spencer were alive today he
would say to him: “chill don’t freeze.”
“He’d tell me, ‘Don’t
have a heart attack. You know, clear your mind and keep it cool,'” he
said. “He would tell me not to hate anybody.”

Concrete Evidence of the Continuing Plunge in Both Civil and Criminal Immigration Enforcement

By Dan Cadman

CIS Immigration Blog, January 23, 2016

Two
recent reports from Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access
Clearinghouse (TRAC) reflect the continued erosion of immigration
enforcement under the Obama administration.

On January
20, TRAC reported that criminal prosecution for immigration offenses
fell 22.3 percent from November 2014 to November 2015, and more than 36
percent over the course of five years, excluding magistrate court
(which deals exclusively with petty offenses).

The
following day, TRAC announced that "ICE [Immigration and Customs
Enforcement] Detainer Use Stabilizes Under Priority Enforcement
Program". The Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) is the replacement to
the Secure Communities Program mandated by Homeland Security Security
Jeh Johnson as a part of the president's "executive actions" on
immigration. It significantly restricts the ability of immigration
agents to file detainers against aliens arrested by police on criminal
charges.

I have no idea what TRAC means by
"stabilizes". A quick look at Figure 1a of their report shows a more
accurate state of affairs, if one considers the number of detainers
being filed over the course of five years, from a high in April 2011,
when Secure Communities became fully effective nationwide and kicked
into high gear, versus October 2015. I would use other phrases:
"plummeted" or "Dropped like a stone". Or, as my colleague Jessica
Vaughan has noted, particularly in relation to detainers filed at
county jails, where the lion's share of criminals of any stripes are
held after being booked for offenses small and large: "a stunning free
fall".